Guides › Slides

Compile the talk, not just the paper

The conference deck and the manuscript are the same project. Slides (Reveal.js) turns your headings into slides, puts your executed figures on them, and emits one HTML file that presents offline.

One project, two outputs

In the compile sheet, choose Slides (Reveal.js). Your headings become slides, your text becomes bullets, citations resolve exactly as they do in the paper — and with the Quarto renderer the deck is a single self-contained HTML file: every figure and style embedded, nothing to install on the podium machine, presents offline in any browser.

Figures that ran

Executed {python} and {r} cells put their figures on the slides — the same matplotlib and ggplot output your manuscript compiles, regenerated from your data at build time. Update the data, recompile the deck, and every plot is current. No screenshot-and-paste, no stale figures the night before the talk.

Scope it to the talk

A talk is rarely the whole manuscript. Select just the talk's sections in the binder and choose Selected documents as the compile scope — metadata, bibliography, and referenced figures come along automatically. Keep a "Talk" folder in the draft with its own condensed headings, and the deck compiles from that alone while sharing every figure and citation with the paper.

Structure controls

Heading levels map to slide structure, so the outline you already maintain is the deck's skeleton. Binder titles can become headings ("Insert binder titles as headings"), a horizontal rule forces a slide break, and speaker-note callouts survive as notes. The same compile profile remembers your choices for next time.